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Percy is nearly five years old when he’s on a broom for the first time.
It’s Bill who puts him on it. Bill, who created a love of flying during his first year at Hogwarts, wants to share this with his younger brothers. Charlie has already been a broom; the two elder brothers used to fly around in moments where their parents want to pretend that the war isn’t as bad as it is. Ron and the twins are both too young, so Bill takes it upon himself to teach Percy.
With Arthur watching from a distance, Bill drags an excited Percy into the yard. Bill, with all the authority of a twelve year, carefully recites all the rules of flying to his younger brother. Percy grips the handle of the broom tightly, trying to remember each and every rule.
His first time in the air doesn’t go very well; Percy barely manages to get his feet off the ground. But Bill’s cheering him on, and Percy hears the joy in his older brother’s voice ringing in his ears for days.
He goes to sleep repeating all the rules Bill told him in his head.
Percy devotes that summer, and the following year while Bill’s at school, trying to get the hang of broomwork. He goes outside every day, on a ratty old broom his father found, and wills himself to fly.
Charlie helps him. At ten years old he’s already a better flyer then the rest of his family, and he’s excited to see if Percy will eventually pick up the skill as well. His younger brother makes progress very slowly, but Charlie wants him to succeed so much.
Percy eventually figures it out and, in his five-year-old mind, finds something almost liberating being up in the air. He stays in the air until his mother tells him to come down again.
Sometimes the twins will run under Charlie and Percy as they fly. Percy waves at them from the air, and all the brothers laugh.
Bill comes home from Hogwarts and Percy practically drags him to the yard. He wants Bill to see how much he’s improved.
Bill watches but the excitement he had about it the year before is gone. The supportive twelve-year-old has been replaced by a moodier thirteen-year-old. Percy, nearly six, recognizes this.
He doesn’t ask Bill to watch him fly again.
Percy doesn’t fly with as much enthusiasm after that. The flying, for Percy, wasn’t so much about actually flying. It was about Bill laughing and telling him he’s doing a good job.
Percy is too young to understand why he wants Bill’s attention so much, but he wants it nonetheless.
Percy understands the rules of Quidditch well enough. He’s grown up with the sport and he plays with his siblings. He plays a children’s version of the game with Bill and Charlie, which mostly involves the two older brothers throwing a makeshift quaffle at the younger brother, who plays as an ineffective keeper.
Percy, no matter how much he tries, will never play the game with as much joy as his siblings; playing sports is not as deeply ingrained in his personality as the rest of his family. But he’s competitive in his own right, and figures out how his brothers fly and constantly outwits them as a keeper. Percy finds excitement in watching his brothers grow increasingly frustrated trying to best their much younger sibling.
Each of their siblings join the game as they get older. Percy is eventually relegated to chaser when Ron proves to be a much better keeper. Percy doesn’t mind too much; being a chaser is much closer to his original joyous flights those first years.
When Percy’s twelve an entire month is devoted to Quidditch. It’s not him who’s placing all the focus on the game, it’s his friend, Oliver Wood. Within minutes of meeting the other boy the year before Percy learns that Oliver’s only dream in life is to be a professional keeper. Preceding the Gryffindor team tryouts, Percy and Oliver (and, in extension, their friend Audrey) stay up late sprawled in the common room going over different techniques.
Oliver and Audrey both try out for the team; Audrey as a chaser, Oliver as a keeper. Percy strongly considers joining them, then thinks better of it. He’s already decided that he wants to focus on his studies, on getting good grades that his parents can’t help but be proud of. There’s no room for Quidditch in that plan.
But Charlie corners him after tryouts are over, demanding an answer as to why he didn’t try. And then it’s “you would have been the best chaser out there, Percy” and “I was really looking forward to playing with you”. Percy can’t forget the sadness in his brother’s voice, but he’s unrelenting in the fact that, no, Quidditch is not what he wants to spend his school years on.
But when he hears Bill’s quiet voice during Christmas break, asking why he didn’t even try, Percy really, really wishes he had.
Percy would never admit it, but he read every one of Oliver’s Quidditch books during their time at Hogwarts. He wanted so desperately to be involved in family discussions about the sport that he wanted to learn everything he could about the subject. Every season he memorizes the names of every single player, learns all their stats. He knows all the different types of brooms, all the different moves and strategies.
Bill calls him out on it one day. Questions why he talks so much about Quidditch with as much knowledge as he does. Percy thinks he hears vague disappointment, maybe resentment in his brother’s voice.
He stays quiet when conversation at the family dinner table turn to Quidditch from then on.
Percy never forgot Bill’s disappointment from his not trying out for the house team during his second year.
In his third and fourth years he strongly considers trying out, just to see if he can get in. He spends the summer that he’ll turn thirteen secretly planning out how he’ll make the team. Charlie was still going to be team captain and Percy knows how to impress him. But he hears Oliver talk about the upcoming season and thinks that to play the sport you should actually love the game.
When Oliver becomes captain the next year he considers trying out again, but he watches Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinet play and knows that he already lost, even if he did try.
He needs a better excuse to play other than making Bill happy, even if Percy still can’t recognize why he feels that way
Percy tries to mask his pure elation for the Quidditch World Cup because he doesn’t want his family to think that he’s trying too hard. But, on the inside, he’s completely excited.
Oliver has been talking up the final match for weeks, and Percy can feel some of his friend’s excitement leech into him. He’s also giddy on the high of getting his first job.
But, he can feel his family’s disappointment when he greets his new boss with more enthusiasm then he’s outwardly showing for the upcoming match. He doesn’t know if Bill’s eyes are boring into him or if he’s just imagining.
He can’t help his smile when the match does begin, but he does his best to not look at his eldest brother. He doesn’t want to know if he’s being watch with pride, with shame, or not at all.
Percy is grateful for the distractions Oliver’s Pudlemere United career causes him. He can feel the tension building up at home, and he’s happy to help his friend on something, anything. He rereads all the books he can find on Quidditch, reteaches himself all the strategies. He pulls himself into making sure that there’s no way in hell Oliver won’t make the team. He gets on a broom and flies around with Oliver and Audrey, going through play after play until Oliver knows every trick in the book.
When Oliver does make Puddlemere, he places the team’s pennant on the wall of his bedroom. Fred and George understand why he’s done it, Ginny and Ron can’t wrap their minds around why he’s cheering for Puddlemere (even after it’s explained to them that “my best mate is on the team I can’t not cheer,”), and Charlie’s not around to care. But one-day Bill comes into his room to tell him to come down for dinner, and his eyes dart to all the Puddlemere memorabilia on the wall in a way that Percy doesn’t understand.
Percy makes it a point to put even more Puddlemere merchandise in his flat once he leaves home. He’s going to support his friend, Bill be damned.
When it becomes clear to him that he’s never going home, that he’s no longer welcome, Percy buys a broom. He buys the cheapest used broom he can find; it reminds him of that first flight so many years ago, back before he was jaded and sad.
He flies though the air and tries to remember what flying was like before it was ruined for him. He doesn’t remember. All he remembers is Bill and Charlie supporting him, trying their best to get him fully off the ground, even if it takes a better part of a year.
He remembers that the twins used to run beneath his broom, but he also remembers that they quickly became better then him. And then Ron did too. And Ginny.
And he remembers the utter disappointment in Bill’s face when it became clear to him that his younger brother was never going to be a flyer, not like the rest of them.
And Percy cries, not because he’s lost his family, but because something that should be so pleasurable to him has been marred by his eldest brother’s dissatisfaction with him; been marred by his utter inability to be like his family.
After the war Percy spends a month at the Burrow. He tries his best to apologize, to fit in, but the atmosphere is moody for different reasons and he can’t get out of his own mind. He apparates back and forth between his flat and his childhood home, and one day comes back with his broom.
In the middle of the night he hovers over the yard, trying to clear his mind. He finds it helps a bit, so night after night he goes back into the sky.
He thinks of his family, of Oliver, of Audrey, of the brother he’s lost. He tries to think of new ways to right all the wrongs he’s done.
Mostly, he tries to think of a way to live without a constant need for validation. Validation from his parents, from his teacher’s, from Bill. He can’t go on like this, but he’s so broken.
Being in the air is the only thing that numbs that pain, even if it’s only slight.
“What are you doing up here, Percy?”
“Bill? I thought you went back to your place.”
“You went to bed before I said that I’d be staying the night. At least I thought you went to bed.”
“…”
“I’m really glad you came back.”
“Me too.”
“Why didn’t you ever come back before?”
“I wasn’t welcome.”
“You were always welcome. The rest might not admit it, but you left a hole.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that. You don’t need to apologize anymore, Perce.”
“There’s so much I’m sorry for. I can’t apologize enough to make it right.”
“Do you think there’s nothing the rest of us need to apologize for. I know you were hurt too, Percy.”
“I think you’re the only one who thinks that.”
“I know. For what it’s worth, I really am sorry.”
“Bill.”
“If you need to apologize for this fight that kept you from us then I need to apologize for my part in it too.”
“I have so much more than just that one fight, so I need to keep apologizing. There’s nothing else I can do.”
“Like what, Percy? What else could you possibly be sorry for?”
“…”
“Percy you have to tell me.”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Percy.”
“Fine. I guess, I’m sorry to you for not being the brother you wanted.”
“What?”
“I was never like everyone else. I know it bothered you.”
“What are you going on about?”
“I’ve always remembered how disappointed you were with me.”
“Percy, I’ve never been disappointed in you. Ever.”
“…”
“I’m serious, Percy. If I’ve made you think that, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I tried to love flying and Quidditch so much for you, Bill. I just wanted you to be happy with me.”
“I always was. I knew you weren’t going to be as Quidditch obsessed as the rest of us, but that was never a problem.”
“Really?”
“Really. Percy, have you been holding onto this for a while?”
“…”
“Percy, please.”
“Do you remember when you taught me how to fly?”
“Yeah.”
“I was utter rubbish at it.”
“You were four.”
“I remember how ecstatic you were that I hovered slightly off the ground. My feet could still brush the grass.”
“Yeah. You were so excited to be floating.”
“I was more excited to have you be excited for me.”
“What?”
“Having you be proud of me was more important.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I spent the next year trying to get really good at flying, so you would be that happy and proud again.”
“Percy, I had no idea.”
“You came back from Hogwarts, and you didn’t care that I could fly alongside Charlie.”
“Percy…”
“You didn’t care. I guess, subconsciously, since then, I’ve just wanted you to care again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“…”
“I’m sorry. I never thought…”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”
“Percy! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I did that to you. I never wanted to do that to you.”
“It’s okay. I just wish…”
“What is it?”
“I wish I hadn’t lived carrying that resentment around with me.”
“Resentment?”
“Yeah.”
“Percy, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“…”
“Well, we can’t turn back time and change it. We just have to move forward from here now.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“…”
“How’d you even find me up here anyways?”
“I looked out my window.”
“Should have seen that answer coming.”
“I was scared you’d be lonely.”
“…”
“…”
“Hey, Bill?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for coming outside.”
Percy tried to fly without regrets as he entered the brunt of adulthood.
Flying had never been a pastime for him as much as it had been a tool. A tool for hiding, a tool for thinking, a tool for remembering.
Instead, he tried to put himself in a different mindset. Tried to think about how Oliver feels while flying. How Ginny feels. How five-year-old him felt when he got fully off the ground for the first time.
And when he teaches little Molly how to fly five years later, he tries to make sure she can fly without similar regrets.